Conditions in our society and our world call the Jewish community to action. The Jewish Life Program supports efforts to meet this challenge by turning to Jewish heritage, religious insights, and culture. In 1991, we focused on four areas: relations between dews and non-Jews, and among Jews; social Justice programs; Jewish education and spirituality; and Jewish arts and culture.* Our funds went primarily to projects in the United States, but we also made some grants in Israel and the former Soviet Union.

Some of our 1991 grantees are described in detail below, and a full list follows at the end of this section. This is an era of freedom and affluence for many American Jews. We believe that our grantees give meaning to the privileges and responsibilities that mark this period in Jewish history.

SPIRITUALITY/EDUCATION

Spirituality, in general, includes aspects of Jewish life such as prayer, meditation, theology, ritual, and liturgy, which provide Jews with a sense of holiness and nourish their daily activities. We have a particular interest in the educational and experiential needs of Jewish adults who have not yet been able to find spiritual meaning Judaism. In 1991, we sought out areas of interest to them, working with established institutions and helping to create new ones. We supported efforts to revive Jewish contemplative traditions, and funded rabbinic education. We supported concerns of Jewish women, and projects which combine healing and the Jewish tradition. We have also responded to the rising rate of intermarriage by funding programs that offer dews and non-Jews the opportunity to experience the richness of Jewish religious and cultural tradition.

*In 1991, we worked primarily through the National Foundation for Jewish Culture.

The Foundation does not accept applications for support of individual artists.

THE SHEFA FUND/JEWISH HEALING CENTER
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania $300,000

A three-year grant for the Jewish Healing Center's first years of programs and operations. The Center currently operating in New York and San Francisco, intends to provide a model for integrating Jewish traditions of spirituality and healing into a comprehensive approach to health care. The Center serves: Jews confronting serious illness and their families; medical personnel who want to incorporate Jewish spiritual values into their dealing with patients; and rabbis who counsel the ill and their families. Staff and consultants have designed programs that address the needs of these various groups.

RECONSTRUCTIONIST RABBINICAL COLLEGE
Wyncote, Pennsylvania $75,000

A renewal of the project Training Rabbis to Meet the Spiritual Needs of Jews, which enables the College to continue to integrate into its curriculum a means to cultivate the spiritual lives of its students, and to give them texts and models for doing the same for their future congregants. The combination of seminars, informal interest groups, weekend spiritual retreats, supervised worship, and course work has influenced the atmosphere of the college on a number of levels. Issues of spiritual growth, theological questions, and the integration of personal and professional concerns have been brought to the surface in both the academic and the experiential components of the students' education.

SOCIAL JUSTICE

In the area of social justice, we have sought to strengthen Jewish institutions working on social justice in the United States and Israel. We have funded programs whose aims are to help people in need to educate the Jewish community about the value Judaism places on social justice; to strengthen that commitment; and to create opportunities for dews to work, as Jews, alongside other groups committed to social change.

JEWISH COUNCIL ON URBAN AFFAIRS
Chicago Illinois $70 000

A two-year grant to help Chicago's Jewish Council on Urban Affairs develop two related poverty initiatives. First, the Council 1S organizing a new Community Partnership Program in two neighborhoods to bring religious organizations together with local community groups to address social problems such as housing shortages, plant closings, hunger, and teen-age gangs. Second, the Council is expanding their outreach to the Chicago Jewish community to educate about, and seek active participation in, efforts to reduce urban poverty in Chicago.

RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN JEWS AND NON-JEWS, AND AMONG JEWS

In this, as in all areas of the Jewish Life Program, we strive for durable connections between Jews and members of other groups: those which bring Jews in conscious relationship with non-Jews in a way to enrich the religious experience of both, or to reduce tensions between the groups. Since 1990, we have supported work exploring the history and future of Black-Jewish relations, funded dialogues between Jews and Palestinians, and supported an historic exchange between reading Jewish thinkers and Tibetan Buddhists, including the Dalai Lama.

THE JEWISH MUSEUM
New York, New York $40,000

To prepare the exhibition Bridges and Boundaries on the history of Black-Jewish relations; and to develop educational materials for schoolchildren and adults that will expand the exhibit into a multicultural educational and arts program. The exhibit is organized around various social locations where Blacks and Jews have interacted: church and synagogue; theater and union hall; courthouse and march; and neighborhood and schools. It concludes with views and critiques on the relations between Blacks and Jews today. A 1990 grant provided funds for the research for this exhibition.

JEWS FROM THE FORMER SOVIET UNION

In the wake of great changes in the Soviet Union, including mass immigration of Jews to Israel, the Foundation also undertook a 3-year initiative in response to these important events. In 1990, we committed $750,000 over three years for this purpose. We will work to help Jews who remain in the republics of the former Soviet Union to live freely, knowledgeably, and without fear, as Jews; and we will help Jews who move to Israel to become integrated into Israeli society, with access to institutions that further democracy and pluralism in that country.

ALEPH SOCIETY/JEWISH FREE UNIVERSITY
New York, New York $25,000

For the Jewish Free University, organized by the staff of Rabbi Adin Steinsalz's Judaic Studies Center, founded in Moscow in February, 1989. Established under the aegis of the Soviet Academy of Science, the Center is the first officially sponsored center for Jewish learning in the USSR since the Russian Revolution. It serves two constituencies: those Jews planning to emigrate; and those who plan to stay in the country but who wish to understand their Jewish heritage. To further its reach, the Jewish Free University is training tutors for the Open University, a correspondence course university, to meet the needs of Jewish students in outlying regions.

NEW ISRAEL FUND
Washington, DC $111,000

Two grants to help meet the needs for democratic absorption of the Russian olim in Israel. The first is a two-year grant to the New Israel Fund enabled an Israeli organization, SHATIL, to provide technical assistance to social change groups in Israel. This training helps Soviet immigrant groups become established, well-structured organizations capable of developing and conducting programs to provide effective services and advocacy on behalf of their constituencies. The New Israel Fund also provided a second grant for the Leo Baeck Education Center, an institution affiliated with the Reform Congregation in Haifa to organize, establish, and operate a food co-op managed by Russian immigrants. The co-op allows the immigrants to meet their need to buy sufficient food with their families' smell incomes. After this seed grant, it is planned that the food co-op will become a self-sustaining organization. A 1990 grant provided funds for the research for this exhibition.

JEWS FROM THE FORMER SOVIET UNION

In the wake of great changes in the Soviet Union, including mass immigration of Jews to Israel, the Foundation also undertook a 3-year initiative in response to these important events. In 1990, we committed $750,000 over three years for this purpose. We will work to help Jews who remain in the republics of the former Soviet Union to live freely, knowledgeably, and without fear, as Jews; and we will help Jews who move to Israel to become integrated into Israeli society, with access to institutions that further democracy and pluralism in that country.

ALEPH SOCIETY/JEWISH FREE UNIVERSITY
New York, New York $25,000

For the Jewish Free University, organized by the staff of Rabbi Adin Steinsalz's Judaic Studies Center , founded in Moscow in February, 1989. Established under the aegis of the Soviet Academy of Science, the Center is the first officially sponsored center for Jewish learning in the USSR since the Russian Revolution. It serves two constituencies: those Jews planning to emigrate; and those who plan to stay in the country but who wish to understand their Jewish heritage. To further its reach, the Jewish Free University is training tutors for the Open University, a correspondence course university, to meet the needs of Jewish students in outlying regions.